Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War

The Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War was a multinational campaign staged from 1918 to 1925, when the Entente powers of World War I intervened in the Russian Civil War with the overt goal of preventing former Imperial Russian Army supplies from falling into German hands in the aftermath of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; the Allies also had the covert goal of overthrowing the communist Bolsheviks and supporting the White movement in installing a pro-Allied government in power. Allied efforts to reopen the Eastern Front failed, and most Allied troops withdrew from Russia in 1920, as World War I had come to a formal close a year earlier with the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. A long-lasting result of the intervention would be the Soviet Union's hostility towards the Western democracies, which they accused of conspiring with counter-revolutionaries to destroy the USSR.

Background
Revolutionary upheaval in Russia in 1917 created a confused situation for Russia's military allies, who were desperate to keep Russia in the war. Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate in March 1917. The Provisional Government that replaced the Czar pledged to continue the war, and was provided with money and arms by Britain, France, and the United States. The failure of a Russian summer offensive was followed by the overthrow of the Provisional Government by the Bolsheviks in November. The Bolsheviks arranged an armistice with the Central Powers in December 1917, but peace negotiations proceeded slowly. Allied hopes that the Bolsheviks could be persuaded to resume the war were dashed by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918.

War
The collapse of Russia was a severe setback for the Allies, because it freed Germany from the need to fight a war on two fronts. The situation in Russia was also dangerously chaotic. The Bolsheviks controlled Petrograd and Moscow, but elsewhere former czarist officers led "White" armies, a loose affiliation of anti-communist forces, in revolt against Bolshevik rule. Bolshevism was also contested by rival revolutionaries and ethnic groups.

As early as December 1917, the Allies agreed in principle to intervene in Russia to support any political force prepared to resume the war against Germany, and to protect military supplies stockpiled in Russian ports from falling into German hands. Action was slow to develop, however, partly because of mutual suspicion between the Allies. Japan was best placed to intervene, with troops available to land at the key Russian port of Vladivostok in eastern Russia, but fears of Japanese territorial ambitions made the other Allies hostile to an independent Japanese initiative.

The Czech Legion
By a strange accident, the Allies found themselves with a substantial military force caught up in the chaos of post-revolutionary Russia. The Czech Legion was a body of Czech and Slovak soldiers recruite during 1916-17 from the Imperial Russian Army and prisoners of war or deserters from the Austro-Hungarian Army. They intended to fight for the Allies in the hope of being rewarded with national independence once the Central Powers had been defeated. The Bolshevik government had agreed to allow the Czech Legian to cross Russia to Vladivostok, after which it could sail to France to join other Czechs and Slovaks fighting on the Western Front. Strung out along the Trans-Siberian Railway through May and June 1918, however, elements of the Legion came into conflict with Bolshevik authorities, who tried to disarm them and obstructed their progress. Local clashes developed into full-scale fighting. An organized and motivated force of some 50,000 men, the Czechs and Slovaks soon had control of a substantial area of Russia along the line of the Trans-Siberian Railway and at Vladivostok. Also in June 1918, substantial numbers of Allied troops began to land in northern Russia. Large stockpiles of munitions, previously sent by Britain to aid their Russian allies, had accumulated at the ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. These were vulnerable to attack by German forces active in Finland. To secure the munitions, a few thousand British and French troops landed at Murmansk, and in July went on to occupy Arkhangelsk. A subsidiary objective of this operation was to provide an alternative route for the Czech Legion to leave Russia and set sail for France. The British, however, began to toy with an alternative plan for the revival of war on the Eastern Front. They proposed that the Allied forces at Arkhangelsk, the Czech Legion, and the White Army of Admiral Alexander Kolchak, based in Siberia, would join together to overthrow the Bolsheviks and reopen Russia's war with Germany.

Mixed motives
In summer 1918, Allied intervention in Russia gained momentum. President Woodrow Wilson sent US troops both to Arkhangelsk - a move known as the Polar Bear Expedition - and to Vladivostok. In August, 7,000 Japanese troops poured into Vladivostok, spreading out to occupy a substantial area of eastern Siberia.

The Allies were far from united in their strategy or objectives, however. Contingents of British, French colonial, and Italian troops landing at Vladivostok were ordered to head into central Russia to support a drive by the Czech Legion against the Bolsheviks. The Japanese concentrated on occupying territory in the east, which they hoped to hold on to after the war. The commander of the 8,000 US troops in Vladivostok, General William S. Graves, refused to become involved in anti-Bolshevik adventures and concentrated on making the Trans-Siberian Railway fully operational. By autumn 1918, the Bolsheviks had turned their newly founded Red Army into an increasingly effective fighting force. Allied and White Russian troops advancing south from Arkhangelsk faced vigorous Bolshevik counterattacks.

On 11 November 1918, the day of the Armistice between the Central Powers and the Allies on the Western Front, British, Canadian, and American troops were fighting hard to repel a Red Army attack on the Dvina River at Tulgas. The end of the war on the Western Front at least clarified the true purpose of the Allied intervention in Russia - the straightforward suupport of the white armies seeking to overthrow the Bolsheviks. The French even expanded intervention to a new front by landing troops at Odessa in southern Ukraine to aid White Army forces in December 1918. Allied war-weariness would, however, soon call to a halt such ventures.

Aftermath
Most Allied powers left Russia in early 1919, except for the United States and Japan, which stayed on in Vladivostok. Under pressure from both the Bolshevik Red Army and war-weary public opinion at home, Allied forces withdrew from Murmansk and Arkhangelsk in the first half of 1919. The french left Odessa in April 1919 after a mutiny in their fleet. The Czech Legion negotiated an armistice with the Bolsheviks and returned to newly independent Czechoslovakia in early 1920. The intervention at Vladivostok lasted the longest, with most Allied troops, including the Americans, leaving in 1920. Japanese troops did not withdraw until 1922.